About Us
Hey, ya'll!
I'm Catherine, chief poultry logistics engineer here at Windmill Hill. Just kidding. I'm the farm wife, the homestead mama, and the dreamer behind all of this.
I'm a small town girl, but a city girl, honestly. I don't know if I ever remember touching a chicken before my husband bought me my first flock! Kevin, my husband, however, was a third-generation dairy farmer. He sold the dairy business back in 2013, so I wasn't around yet to see the farm in its glory days. I do, however, get to reap the benefits. Our one-hundred and fifty acres of what was once a dairy is now a beautiful landscape of thick, lush, nutrient-dense, green grass.
Pasture-raised poultry.
I knew the importance of providing poultry ample access to fresh grass and forage. That, to me, was common sense. From the beginning, I wanted to raise any and all of my animals to be healthy and to live happy, meaningful lives. I wanted them to have fresh grass and room to move. I wanted them to be able to forage for seeds, bugs, and such things that enrich their diet and in turn, our diet.
We started with a flock of Novagen Browns, because I just wanted "a few chickens to follow me around." Kevin ordered me thirty chicks off the internet. I didn't even know that was possible! Anyways, thirty baby chickens. I only wanted a few. He said we'd grow them out and we could sell however many I didn't want in the spring, and that's what we did. That's how all this started. I learned to brood chicks and we raised them together. Most couples probably get a fish or something as a first pet together, but we got chickens. As soon as they were big enough, we put them in a chicken tractor in one of the pastures so they had access to grass, but were safe from predators. I referred to it as a "safer way to free-range."
I fell in love.
With chickens, with farming, with staying home, with my husband. If you couldn't find me, I was probably out sitting in the chicken tractor talking to my girls. I soon found out there were chickens that laid colored eggs, so I had to have some. I quickly learned about specialty breeds, the importance of purchasing from quality breeders, Standards of Perfection, breeding and genetics, and what it meant to cull. Chicken math happened, the ladies at the post office probably have me on speed dial by now, and we have driven several states to buy breeding stock.
In just our fourth year, you wouldn't recognize us now. We've worked our tail feathers off! Nevertheless, I still have many, many plans to expand. Here at Windmill Hill, like our grass, we're always growing.